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"The dog parking in Switzerland was amusing but our dogs in Tauranga know how to park with style and comfort," writes a reader. "Check out this luxury dog parking at the Bayfair Shopping Centre ... It seems some water, grass and toys help dogs park between the lines."

Gang strikes back

"In the 60s, three of us were hauled on to the stage during school assembly because we were talking," writes a reader. "We were all members of the Milky Bar Gang, and wore our tin badges [free with every six bars] to prove it. Trouble was mine fell off during All Things Bright and Beautiful, clanging along the stage. I got slapped about six times on the back of the legs in front of the whole school. Because I cried it was decided that I could no longer be a member of the gang."

Teacher has difficulty separating truth and insolence

A reader writes: "1940 Eastern Hutt School, Standard 1. The Health Dept was visiting schools testing pupils' hearing and eyesight. I was picked up with high myopia and on returning to school with my wonderful glasses, the teacher [in front of the whole class] said, 'Hello four-eyes'. I said she was four-eyed too [she had specs and cut out holes for bunions in her brogues] but I was insolent and got six cuts with the thin side of her ruler."

Good riddance to the 'charter for sadists'

Henry Perkins of Botany Downs writes: "The in-loco parentis provision in law which enabled teachers to beat children who were not their own was widely availed of when I was a schoolboy back in the 1950s. We boys were particularly wary of the PE teacher, whose instrument of choice was a skipping rope about the thickness of a finger and doubled. If he was particularly annoyed it was doubled twice, which meant the marks from a three-stroke punishment were the equivalent of a 12-stroke caning. Many years later I heard that portion of law described as a charter for sadists. I'm not sorry to see that it has been abolished. Present-day schoolboys don't appreciate how lucky they are."